“Because girls won’t think to turn on Matt?” Tyrsa asked sarcastically.
“I guess. They haven’t, so far.”
Tyrsa frowned. We stood quietly for a few moments, mulling over what we had learned. A wave of exhaustion suddenly hit me and my legs felt like lead.
“We should go back,” Jenny said.
She picked up her flashlight and switched off the lanterns, leaving only the single beam of light. She walked us back to our spot, displaying an excellent memory as to where we were situated. She waited till we had all gotten into our sleeping bags before she left us, saying goodnight with a weak smile and a nod. When she was gone, I felt like I was in the ocean right after a shipwreck, the bodies in sleeping bags like pieces of rubble floating around me. The pain pills were starting to kick in, so the throbbing had dulled to a numb ache. I wondered what time it was. There was no longer any ticking clock in the kitchen. I felt homesick. All I wanted was to have that monotonous daily routine back. It was stable. Safe. So what if it was boring? Boring meant I wasn’t worried about dying. Wanting anything else but boredom during times like this was stupid.
I closed my eyes, but even with my exhaustion, I couldn’t relax. My eyes were doing that thing where even when they’re closed, they dart around under the eyelids. I became overly aware of what the darkness looked like, so much so that it was blinding. My body ached. Now that the pain in my head had lessened, other bruises and bumps from the attack surfaced. Lying on a concrete floor with only a thin layer of sleeping bag didn’t help either. My shoulder hurt, either from where the soda can had struck me, or from falling on the ground, or both. I turned over to my back, trying to adjust to a more comfortable position. Rick was on my left, also on his back. I glanced over at him to see if he was asleep. His eyes were wide open, but he might as well have been asleep, given how unresponsive he looked to the world around him. I had never seen him so completely lost within himself. It seemed like he never blinked. He just stared at the ceiling, the light from one of the nearby lanterns just barely illuminating his face.
Poor Rick.
It was clear that he had taken all the blame of our capture on himself. Was it because he was the biggest and the strongest? The oldest? I had never really thought about how I saw Rick, but it was true, I did consider him a leader, along with Tyrsa. Especially when it was just me, Lawrence, and Rick. He was like our big brother. I hoped he didn’t carry that guilt for very long, though if anything happened to any of us on a raid, it would completely break him.
We have to get out of here, I thought.
There were no other options. Word about the looters must have spread, and everyone would be sitting up in their houses armed with whatever weapons they could find, ready for us. As the first ones in, Rick, Lawrence, and I wouldn’t stand a chance. And we had to think about the girls. Jenny hadn’t mentioned anything about Matt and his crew messing with her or the other women, but it was only a matter of time before that became a problem. It was inevitable. Even if either three of us survived long enough to see that happen, what could we do about it? How could we protect Tyrsa and Beth? And Jenny? And God help us, Darcy?
I shuddered involuntarily.
Can’t think about that.
But I had to. The worst-case scenario was upon us, and I didn’t have the luxury of pushing things to the side just because they were disturbing. I closed my eyes and worried, anxiety carving a hole in my chest like a buzz saw. I opened my eyes again. I lay facing Tyrsa. It had happened by accident, believe it or not. One of the lanterns placed sporadically around the large room was close enough so that I could see her. Her eyes were closed, though I could tell by the crinkle in her forehead that she was awake. My heart swelled, but it wasn’t with love, at least not a love I had felt before. It was more of a sad feeling, like when you look at something you know might not always be with you.
Whatever happens, I thought, I’m not going anywhere without you.
I don’t know when I finally fell asleep, but my last thought wasn’t about Tyrsa or even what had just happened to us. It was about Mom. That thought blended into my dreams and I recalled a memory of shortly after my dad died, where she took a sheet of cookies out of the oven and started to cry. I imagined her doing that now. Just standing in the kitchen and crying.
Chapter 11
When I woke, it was bright inside the warehouse. There were skylights and sunshine blazed down through a thin layer of white clouds. When I tried to sit up, my body creaked like I was a thousand years old. Tyrsa was already up beside me, sitting cross-legged on her sleeping bag. She was looking at me, concerned.
“Are you ok?” she asked.
She lightly touched the bandage on my head.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Here, have some water.”
I took the bottle from her and drank deeply.
“What time is it? When did you get up?”
“It’s eight am,” she said. “Ariel woke us up about an hour ago.”
Tyrsa handed me a granola bar. I hadn’t thought about hunger since I had been so preoccupied, but seeing food made my empty stomach gnaw at itself. I unwrapped the granola hungrily.
“It’s laundry day,” Tyrsa continued.
“Have you seen Matt or Jamal or anyone?”
“They’re sleeping somewhere else, I think. I haven’t seen them.”
“Where are the others?” I asked, suddenly noticing Rick, Lawrence, and Beth weren’t with us.
“Waiting in line to go to the bathroom.”
She pointed towards the back of the warehouse and I saw a line of people guarded by Ariel and Dirk. One by one, they were taken outside and after a few minutes, came back in. Of course they wouldn’t be given any privacy outside. In the grand scope of our situation, it wasn’t the worst thing by far, but it still made rage rise up in my throat. I finished the granola bar, trying to make each bite last as long as possible.
I hadn’t slept well. Even though I was sitting up, I dozed while everyone was busy with going in and out of the warehouse. I could hear voices, but they sounded like they were coming from underwater. They muddled together and broke into my dreams, but nothing they said made sense. I was jolted violently from my trance when Ariel snapped her fingers in my face.
“Hey!” she said, frustrated. “Get up! Everyone’s gotta go pee before I leave!”
I struggled to my feet, my head swimming. I followed her to the door, not really aware of what was happening. Dirk waited there, and when he grabbed me by the collar and pushed me outside into the cold sunshine, I woke fully. I noticed right away that there was a very thin layer of snow on the ground. It was crunchy and the fractals of ice cracked beneath my shoes.
“Hurry up,” Dirk said from behind me.
I glanced back at him. He was standing with his side to me, so he wasn’t looking directly at me, but could see my movements from the corner of his eye. I completed my business and was taken back inside. Ariel had gathered all the girls in the middle of the room and appeared to be giving them instructions. I noticed Jenny on the outside of the circle, with Darcy beside her. Darcy saw me and her eyes revealed recognition, but she didn’t greet me. Jenny must have told her to not show that she knew us. Rick and Lawrence were back in our assigned spot, eating breakfast. I went over to them, overhearing what Ariel was saying in passing.
“You four with me,” she said. “You newbies stay here today,” Ariel added, indicating Beth and Tyrsa. “You need to prove yourself before you get to go on a trip.”
Lawrence was eating from a can of tuna with his fingers, looking bedraggled. His shoulder-length hair stuck up in every direction and his eyes were bloodshot. He nodded at me in greeting when I sat down beside him. Rick didn’t look much better; he looked like he hadn’t slept at all. He nibbled at a granola bar and pretended not to be listening to Ariel. She gave some more instructions before the group broke up. Beth and Tyrsa helped stuff armfuls of musty clothes into garbage bags before stepping to the side. Th
e laundry group left shortly afterwards, carrying the bags of dirty clothes. I could see some blood-stained clothing through the opaque material. With Ariel and four girls gone, there were ten of us left, not counting crew members. I took stock of what was going on in the warehouse. Matt, Jamal, Tim, and the twins all slept in the room Jenny had treated us in, so they wouldn’t be disturbed. The guy with the shaved head, Dirk, was assigned as a guard. Ariel said a few words to him on her way out the door. He nodded. When she was gone, he strode over to Rick, Lawrence, and I.
“You, in the sleeping room,” he said shortly, gesturing with his gun. “Take your sleeping bags and water.”
His gun was an AK-47. I hadn’t seen one up close until the night before, and in the light of day, it almost looked fake. I didn’t want to get into a situation where that was tested. Rick, Lawrence, and I obeyed immediately and took our sleeping bags into the smaller back room. I glanced back at Beth and Tyrsa. They looked worried, and very small, like kids. Inside the back room, the crew were all sleeping soundly. Some were even snoring. It smelled like cigarette smoke and old sweat. Some playing cards lay unattended on the floor.
“Don’t even think about trying anything,” Dirk said right before he closed the door. “If you come out before Matt or one of the others, you’re getting the butt of this gun in your face.”
Nice.
“What if we have to piss?” Rick asked, his voice hard as stone.
“Wake one of them up.”
“They probably won’t like that.”
“Not my problem.”
We set up our sleeping bags in the corner closest to the door so we could sit with our backs to the wall. We noticed that the first aid kit was gone.
Probably didn’t want us improvising some kind of weapon, I thought. They do think of everything.
I unscrewed the cap from my water and took a long drink. Lawrence’s eyes darted around the room, examining each sleeping body, to make sure they were really asleep and not able to overhear.
“Hello,” he whispered, testing his volume.
Nobody moved. Lawrence turned to Rick and I, and mouthed the word “Fuck.” His lip had turned deep purple and was so puffy it transformed his face. They had put paper up on the wide, back windows of the room to make it darker, but I could still see everyone much clearer than the night before. We all looked pretty rough.
“We have to get out,” I whispered, my voice barely audible.
“How?”
“I don’t know...on the raid, turn on them right after we break in, take them by surprise.”
“They won’t give us guns, and we can’t take the six of them down with hatchets or whatever they give us. Sticks, probably.”
“Then...when we have to pee...it’s one guard per guy, right? Whip around real quick, hit them with the stream, punch them out, take their gun?”
It would have sounded like a joke in less horrible situations, but Lawrence was dead serious. We were grasping at straws.
“Someone will hear,” Rick said hopelessly. “And it would still be one guy against at least five. I’m sure Ariel has a gun.”
Any idea we thought of was way too risky. The crew always kept together; even if we managed to get it down to one-on-one, we’d still have to face a whole bunch of them later. The crew was vigilant and inherently suspicious; they knew none of us wanted to be here, so they made trying to escape a death sentence. They were so confident they let three new guys in the same room with their leaders sleeping, because what were we going to do? Try to choke one of them out? He would wake up, start flailing around, and wake everyone else up. If we tried to leave without any of them leading the way, Dirk would stop us cold in our tracks. I rested my head in my hands and took a deep breath.
Just try to stay alive, I thought. That’s the only doable plan. Survive.
Despite my agonized thoughts, I did manage to doze off. My body was so strained that sleep was its only way to try and recover. I drifted in and out, sometimes almost falling asleep for real, and then snapping back to consciousness. I didn’t want the time to go by quickly. Time was our only friend. It gave us space to wrack our brains for escape ideas and widened the gap between being relatively safe in this room, and out on a raid playing a worm on a hook, just waiting to be gobbled up. Not knowing exactly how much time was passing made me extremely nervous. I would jolt awake and be terrified that hours had passed. I started measuring where a certain beam of light was on the floor and was relieved when I checked it. It was not moving. The beam had just begun to inch back when the door opened a crack. We froze.
Could Dirk hear us from the other side of the wall? I had assumed it was thick concrete, but what if it wasn’t thick enough? My heart pounding, I got up to see what Dirk wanted, but was instead met by Beth peering through the opening, her eyes huge. She gestured violently for me to come out. I turned to Rick and Lawrence and made the same motion. We looked at the sleeping forms of Matt and the others, holding our breath. Nobody moved. Just snoring and heavy breathing. We crept out as quickly and quietly as possible, closing the door behind us. When I turned, I saw that Beth’s hand was covered in blood up to the wrist, and that she gripped one of her art knives. My mouth fell open. I looked to the floor and saw Dirk’s crumpled body in a pool of blood, his jugular cut cleanly all the way across.
“What the hell!” Rick whispered.
His voice was still too loud and Lawrence nudged him in the ribs.
“What happened?” Rick mouthed.
“No time,” Beth whispered back. “Just go.”
We noticed the warehouse was empty, except for flat sleeping bags and some boxes. All the girls had fled. We didn’t need to be told twice. We sprinted across the warehouse and out the door, closing it quietly behind us. Tyrsa, Jenny, and Darcy were outside waiting for us. Jenny had a black backpack while Tyrsa carried what must have been Dirk’s gun. I hadn’t even noticed that it hadn’t been with his body. Darcy’s mouth fell open when she saw Beth’s bloody hand, but she just gripped her mother’s hand tighter and was quiet.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Don’t know yet,” Tyrsa said curtly. “Anywhere. Just far away from here. Who knows when the others will be back?”
“They took a car,” Jenny interjected. “It won’t be long.”
We took off. I ran like the devil was chasing me. We ran in the opposite direction of the laundromat towards who knows what. It didn’t matter, as long as it was away from the inferno of rage that was bound to erupt from that warehouse. When we couldn’t sprint anymore, we slowed to a more bearable jog.
“How did you get that knife?” I asked Beth, out of breath.
“Hid it inside my sock before they broke in the apartment,” Beth replied. “They didn’t think to search there. They almost found it when they looked in my boots, but it’s so small, they just missed it.”
“Holy shit,” Lawrence breathed hoarsely. “How did you get so close to him without him freaking out?”
“I had the knife in my sleeve and just walked up with a water bottle. He wasn’t suspicious at all. He put his gun to the side and when he reached out…I covered his mouth so he wouldn’t make noise. He bled out so fast...”
“Whoa,” Lawrence said. “Didn’t even see it coming.”
“That’s what happens when you underestimate women,” Tyrsa said triumphantly.
I looked over at her and couldn’t help but smile at the fire in her eyes
“Where did everyone else go?” Rick asked.
“Just scattered,” Tyrsa said. “When they saw Dirk fall, they just ran. It was like they had been preparing for that moment. They moved so fast, and so quietly. Grabbing boxes and water…”
“Did you know she was going to do that?” I asked Tyrsa. “Stab him?”
Tyrsa nodded. “She told me. I said I would do it, but Beth said I would raise his suspicions right away.”
“You are kind of a troublemaker,” I joked.
I was high on adrenaline
. We were far from being safe, but I felt free, like I was a puppet who had just gotten his strings cut. We had a chance.
“We need to get out of town,” Rick said.
By now, he was carrying Darcy on his back. She wrapped her small arms around his neck and held on tight, her face buried against him. She was exhausted.
“Where to? We need some kind of destination,” I said.
“My dad’s farm,” Tyra said suddenly. “It’s the closest place we’ve got.”
“Isn’t that in Texas?” Lawrence asked.
“I didn’t say it was “close,” but last we heard, it was safe. We can’t go back east, it’s just as bad there.”
We all stopped walking and put our heads together. We needed a car and gas. Who knows what was still open or still standing along the way, and besides, we didn’t have any money. We also needed weapons. We could easily run into more looters beside Matt, looters who would kill us on sight, and we assumed Matt and his crew would be after us after what we had done. We needed to be ready for them. We needed food and water, too.
“There’s some stuff in the backpack,” Jenny said. “I just grabbed everything it would hold, I don’t know if it’s enough.”
“How long will it take us to get to the farm?” Rick asked.
“Like 13 hours, at least, if we can drive all the way.”
We watched as Tyrsa and Jenny looked through the backpack.
“It looks okay,” Tyrsa said, her voice uncertain. “But we really don’t have much choice. We need to find someplace safe to hide until we get a car. We can’t be out wandering around all together without a base. Ariel and Matt are going to be looking for us. And I have a feeling they won’t be bringing us back with them again.”
Chapter 12
Each moment we spent outside and exposed felt like one moment closer to a bomb going off. We began to run again, eyes peeled for cars. I wore Jenny’s backpack for her and the cans clanked together, making a seemingly impossible amount of noise. We passed stores with parking lots littered with runaway carts and flying trash and rows of dark little shops with “Closed” signs hanging in their windows. It was like Bloomington had become a ghost town. We ran past the IU grounds and were shocked to see a few people roaming around. They were like zombies; they either didn’t see us or didn’t feel the need to react at all. We kept running. We were heading into the suburbs, where the big houses were.
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